The WeLead Reader
March 23, 2019

Decisions for Abrams: Following her successful response to the State of the Union, former Georgia House Minority Leader and recent gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has several possible next steps in her career -  “Governor? Senator? Veep? President?” In a profile for New York Magazine, Rebecca Traister writes that Abrams "who is usually sure about everything finds herself conflicted about her future."    The New York Times reports this week that advisers of Joe Biden are considering having him name Abrams early as his running mate —if he chooses to run.   Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine makes the case for a Biden-Abrams ticket while the Washington Post's Karen Tumulty argues against it. 

Tackling the Opioid Crisis, One State at a Time: Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote an op-ed about the opioid crisis in Michigan: "if we succeed, our work will help create a blueprint for the nation on how to end this crisis once and for all.” Bloomberg Philanthropies has pledged $50 million in resources and expertise to Pennsylvania and Michigan, two states hit hardest by the opioid crisis. Detroit News

Lawful Ladies: Women judges in D.C. are “central to the Russia imbroglio, often behind the scenes.” In this NPR piece, read about the female judges helping to make history in the Russia investigations, every step of the way. NPR

Brazile is Back… At Fox: Following a rocky exit from both CNN and as interim chair of the DNC, Donna Brazile has taken a position as a commentator at Fox News. Brazile says the move stems from her belief in civility and open dialogue across the aisle. In an extensive Q&A with The New Yorker, Brazile further defends her decision. HuffPost, The New Yorker

Me Too HBCU: Me Too founder Tarana Burke is launching a five-stop tour examining sexual assault at HBCUs. Throughout the month of April, in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Burke will be joined by cultural scholar Dr. Yaba Blay to talk strategy in creating safety and accountability around sexual assault. “This has been a vision of mine for many, many years,” Burke said. HuffPost

The Outspoken Women of the House: In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Michelle Cottle spotlights the “freshmen Furies” in Congress, challenging what she calls the "absurd" stereotype of women politicians as more conciliatory and less partisan - "if they can chip away at the pretty little myth of women as political saviors, they will have done a service to us all."  New York Times

Compassionate Leadership in a Difficult Time: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern responded with grace and speed to the traumatic terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques earlier this week. Waiting for no one, Ardern took the lead immediately, donning a black scarf and walking alongside Muslim New Zealanders in mourning. NPR reported on her speech to Parliament in which she addressed the crisis, encouraging others in the country to “give him nothing” and vowing, “You will never hear me mention his name.” She has garnered international praise for the response. Even political opponents in her home country have called her reaction “outstanding.” New York Times, NPR

 

One Woman at a Time: In a crowded field of potential Democratic nominees, women candidates are turning the race into a fair one. Vox dives into what it takes to get women to run, what it means, and the normalization of women in the presidential races. Vox

2020 as "the real Year of the Woman":  Matt Yglesias of Vox, makes the case for electing a woman as president in 2020. "Democrats have an unprecedented range of solid women running for president. They should pick one." Vox

➤➤Kirsten Gillibrand

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) officially joined the presidential race last Sunday with a video announcement. On Monday, she took the stage at a MSNBC town hall in Michigan, where she addressed the sexual harassment allegations in her Senate office. Gillibrand also made a stop in Las Vegas, where she talked of a “bolder, better vision.”

Gillibrand held a town hall in Iowa on Wednesday. Tomorrow, she will hold a campaign kickoff rally in front of Trump International Tower in Manhattan. On March 31, at the home of Sally Susman, a top executive at pharmaceutical company Pfizer, Gillibrand will host a high-dollar fundraiser.

News & Analysis:

• Hoping for a Fresh Start, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand Releases Video, Plans Rally at Trump Hotel Washington Post
• Top Gillibrand Aide to Leave Amid Questions Over Sexual Harassment Investigation POLITICO
• Gillibrand: ‘Post-Investigation’ Errors in Misconduct Claim Associated Press
• Kirsten Gillibrand Faces Opioid Bill Backlash from Disability Community Huffington Post
• Gillibrand is Making Paid Family Leave a Defining Issue in her 2020 Run Vox
• Kirsten Gillibrand Becomes 6th Female Candidate: Why It’ll Help Women Win In 2020 Forbes

Opinion:

• Marc Thiessen: Kirsten Gillibrand’s Sexual Misconduct Hypocrisy Washington Post
• Editorial: Gillibrand Should Step Out of the Race Niagara Gazette
• Gillibrand Less Well Liked in New York Than Democratic Rivals New Haven Register

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) spent time this week campaigning on the West Coast. Several Hollywood elites, including television producer Shonda Rhimes, hosted a fundraiser for her on Wednesday. Harris made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! where she talked about her campaign, Star Wars, and 2020 (see the entire thing here).

Last night, Harris began her first campaign swing through Texas, meeting with Democrats in Tarrant County. (Highlights from the Dallas Morning News) Today, she will hold a rally at Texas Southern University in Houston.

News & Analysis:

• How Black Women Could Give Harris a Financial Boost in 2020 Yahoo Finance
• A Political Awakening: How Howard University Shaped Kamala Harris’ Identity Los Angeles Times
• Kamala Puts Beto on Notice POLITICO
• New 2020 Poll Shows Huge Gains for Kamala Harris CNN
• Kamala Harris Says She Is Open to Abolishing Electoral College The Hill
• Harris to Call for Federal Spending to Raise Teacher Salaries Los Angeles Times
• In Pitch for President, Sen. Kamala Harris Focuses on Criminal Justice, Inequality NPR

Opinion:

• Michael Harriot: The Kamala Conundrum The Root
• Nick Pemberton: Is Kamala Harris the Centrist We Need? Counter Punch

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) announced new staff hires for her Iowa campaign ahead of her visit there last weekend. During the swing, Klobuchar marched in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Cedar Rapids and met with supporters to discuss “rural concerns” in Davenport.

News & Analysis:

• Amy Klobuchar Runs On A Record Of Accomplishments — Including With Republicans NPR
• As a Prosecutor in Heavily White Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar Declined to Go After Police Involved in Fatal encounters with Black Men Washington Post
• Klobuchar After New Zealand Attack: Trump’s ‘Rhetoric Doesn’t Help’ CNN
• Why Klobuchar’s Strength In Minnesota May Not Translate To The Primaries FiveThirtyEight
• Klobuchar’s ‘Senator Next Door’ Strategy Collides with Betomania POLITICO

Opinion:

• Jennifer Rubin: You Say You Want a Candidate with Substance? Here’s Substance Washington Post
• Amy Poehler Names the 2 Democrats Leslie Knope Might Support in 2020 The Week

➤➤Elizabeth Warren

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) will be in New Hampshire this weekend. Today, she will take part in a “community conversation” on the opioid crisis in Littleton, NH, and a meet-and-greet in Berlin. Tomorrow, she will hold an organizing event in Conway.

Warren, as part of a three-state tour of the deep south last week, made stops in Alabama, Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee. 

News & Analysis:

• Warren Bucks the Trend by Running on Ideas Time Magazine
• Elizabeth Warren Calls for Ending Electoral College New York Times
• Elizabeth Warren Isn’t A Fan Of Raising The Gas Tax To Pay For Infrastructure Needs HuffPost
• Warren Embraces Underdog Role As She Faces 2020 Challenges Associated Press
• Warren Focuses On Policy, Which Looks Like A Tough Sell With Voters NPR

Opinion:

• Helaine Olen: Can Voters Forgive Elizabeth Warren? Washington Post
• Colin Reed: Will the 3 Bs (Beto, Biden and Bernie) leave Elizabeth Warren on the sidelines in 2020? Fox News
• Jill Filipovic: Elizabeth Warren Nailed It CNN
• Rich Lowry: Why Elizabeth Warren Is Wrong About the Electoral College POLITICO Magazine

➤➤Tulsi Gabbard

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) made stops in Las Vegas and Fremont, California last week, where she called for a “movement of peace.” Gabbard continues to lag behind the rest of the Democratic candidates, even facing pushback from Dems in her home state of Hawaii.  She has been in New Hampshire since Thursday and will continue campaigning there through the weekend. 

News &  Analysis:

• Where in the World is Tulsi Gabbard? POLITICO
• Who is Tulsi Gabbard? The Progressive 2020 Hopeful Praised by Bannon and the Right The Guardian
• Tulsi Gabbard 2020 A Mirror Image of Ron Paul 2008? IVN
• 2020 Candidate Conversation: U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard New Hampshire Public Radio

Opinion:

• Opinion: Response to “Any Blue Will Do — Except Tulsi Gabbard” The Review (University of Delaware)

Gillibrand’s Town Hall: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand made an appearance on an MSNBC town hall with Chris Hayes, where she talked about, “challenges with the current rhetoric around border security and immigration.” MSNBC

Women Learning From Women: WPI’s Executive Director, Betsy Fischer Martin, was featured on “She Said / She Said” podcast with Laura Cox Kaplan, where the two discussed “making mentorship a two-way street,” career transitions, and “how to apply your skills and experiences in new ways to add value and have a bigger impact.” She Said / She Said

Making Policy: Both sides of the aisle have a plan to address family leave. In this Marketplace podcast, listen to a dissection of the politics behind the ideas and how they factor into 2020, “Each party is positioning itself on this issue because of voter concern about the challenge of balancing work and family, and the clout of women in the electorate.” Marketplace

She Survives: As a part of the #BadassWomenDC series, CNN’s Dana Bash visited the childhood home of presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway in Atco, New Jersey. With an absent father and growing up around “South Jersey's version of the 'Golden Girls,'” Conway tells a tale of women empowerment elevating her to where she has found herself now. Notably, the piece has received some pushback for putting the spotlight on Conway. CNN

Which Women Win? Democrats, Mostly: “When women run, they win” has become conventional wisdom in politics, but not much research has been devoted to which women are most likely to win elections. Danielle Thomsen (University of California Irvine) uses new data to examine partisan victory patterns among women candidates in House races from 1980 to 2012. While there has been change over time, Republican women have generally faced a much more difficult electoral environment than their Democratic counterparts. The gap between Democratic and Republican women has widened recently, and will likely persist, as Republican women who run are disadvantaged compared to Democrats. Republican women are “less likely to be incumbents, they have more primary competition, and they run in less favorable partisan environments.” Unless this partisan inequity can be reversed, prospects for gender parity in Congress remain remote. Politics, Groups, and Identities

Strong Women on Screen: Could TV shows encourage women to engage in politics? This is the question at the heart of a new paper by Jennifer Hoewe (Purdue University) and Lindsey A. Sherrill (University of Alabama). Surveys revealed that popular political dramas like Madam Secretary, The Good Wife, and Scandal—all of which have strong female leads who exhibit political leadership—have “prosocial implications, including the non-stereotypical representation of women as well as increased political engagement among viewers.” Regular viewer of the shows reported increased political interest and self-efficacy. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media

Will It Work?: The Brookings Institution examines the potential impact of the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative (W-GDP), announced by President Trump in February. The initiative aims to promote women’s economic empowerment around the world, and Ana Revenga and Meagan Dooley of Brookings call the W-GDP “a positive step” to promote gender equality that “largely aligns with what leading research suggests—that women’s economic participation and empowerment matter greatly for economic growth and poverty reduction.” However, they also find that there is more work to be done, stating that W-GDP “does not address the full range of policy and programming responses necessary to support” women’s economic empowerment. Brookings Institution

Who’s On the Hill?: A new analysis from the nonpartisan R Street Institute finds that, while congressional committee staff jobs are held relatively equally by men and women, women face a “pervasive pay gap.”  The study also found that women are underrepresented on the most powerful committees, such as banking and financial services, foreign relations, and armed services, and overrepresented on administrative committees. Read the full report here.

Pay Equity? Not Yet: The Institute for Women’s Policy Research has released their 2018 fact sheet about the gender wage gap, and the news isn’t good. IWPR finds that “the gender wage gap in weekly earnings for full-time workers in the United States widened between 2017 and 2018. Overall, median weekly earnings were $973 for men and just $789 for women. However, the gap is even larger for Black and Hispanic women. There is still a long way to go before pay equity is a reality: IWPR notes that “If women were paid the same as comparable men...nearly 60% of women would see a pay increase, including almost two thirds of single mothers.” Institute for Women’s Policy Research

IWD at WPI: To celebrate International Women’s Day, WPI and the American University School of Public Affairs hosted six female ambassadors to the U.S. for a panel discussion about women’s challenges and opportunities in political representation around the world. Panelists included Ambassadors Floreta Faber of Albania, Vlora Çitaku of Kosovo, Kirsti Kauppi of Finland, Claudia Ivette Canjura de Contento of El Salvador, Karin Olofsdotter of Sweden, and Rosemary Banks of New Zealand. WPI Executive Director Betsy Fischer Martin moderated the event. School of Public Affairs

Watering Down Women’s Rights?: In negotiations at the UN Commission on the Status of Women, U.S. officials are trying to soften language in CSW draft documents and refusing to recommit to the Beijing Agreement from the 1995 World Conference on Women, regarded as “the blueprint for global women’s rights.” The U.S. is pushing to remove the word “gender” from the document, as well as references to migration and climate change. Shannon Kowalski of the International Women’s Health Coalition said that the U.S. was “emboldening other countries to take a regressive position” on human rights. The Guardian

#SeeHer:  Steve Cavendish, a Nashville based journalist writes "an unappreciated aspect of sexism is the workplace is age discrimination and it operates in many places. But one of the places where it's most visible is in TV news.” Cavendish points to media company Meredith to make his point: two Meredith-owned TV stations are being sued for age discrimination by female news anchors who were let go and replaced with younger women. New York Times

“They were fierce—braving ridicule, arrest, imprisonment and treatment that came close to torture.”: The Smithsonian Magazine takes an intricate look at the development and successes of the long battle for women’s suffrage. Alongside this historical deep dive is the announcement of the “Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence” exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., on display through January 5, 2020. Smithsonian Magazine

Hitting the Trail: Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke is in talks with veteran Democratic strategist Jen O’Malley Dillon to lead his campaign. O’Malley Dillon was deputy campaign manager on President Obama’s reelection bid and also served as executive director of the Democratic National Committee. CNN.  O'Malley Dillon first met with O'Rourke at SXSW in Austin to discuss the job, shortly before he announced his candidacy.  New York Times

Activism Runs in the Family: 16-year-old Isra Hirsi was one of the US organizers of the International Youth Climate Strike on Friday, March 15. Hirsi is the daughter of freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar. Refinery 29

Women Rising Up: Co-founder of Black Lives Matter and Marie Claire contributing editor Alicia Garza has long called for the empowerment of the underrepresented. In this column, Garza celebrates the political mobilization of women, especially women of color, who she says are becoming “the new face of power in the United States.” Marie Claire

Women for Bernie?: Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (D-VT) presidential campaign announced the hire of 10 women staffers to key positions. According to the campaign, all its teams now have women—“predominantly women of color”—in leadership positions, and “the national leadership team is around 70% women.” Refinery29